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Christopher Bao and Annie Rupertus
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Princeton asked all departments and University units to prepare “separate plans for 5 percent and 10 percent permanent budget cuts to be phased in over the next three years, with some actions to start later this summer” in an email sent to faculty and staff on Monday afternoon — the University’s most dramatic budgetary guidance yet following a tumultuous semester for higher education.
The email, sent by Provost Jennifer Rexford and Executive Vice President Katie Callow-Wright, explicitly acknowledged the potential for layoffs to be part of budget reductions. “Cuts of this magnitude to our budget cannot be achieved without changes to some operations and the associated elimination of some staff positions,” they wrote.
David Montgomery ‘83
Princeton Alumni Weekly
Excerpt: For the first time in memory, Princeton is inviting alumni, faculty, students, and allies to lend their voices to a broad campaign of political advocacy and public affirmation in response to the Trump administration’s unprecedented attacks on research funding and academic freedom in American higher education. “To my knowledge, this is a new kind of initiative for the University,” President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 told PAW in an early May interview about the campaign, which is called “Stand Up for Princeton and Higher Education.”
Samuel J. Abrams
American Enterprise Institute
Excerpt: In response to the Trump Administration’s continued attacks on higher education, leaders of some of the most prominent colleges and universities are pushing back—albeit hypocritically. Nearly 500 college presidents and deans signed an open letter from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, titled “A Call for Constructive Engagement.” Without proper context, the letter is quite reasonable.
Consider three well-known cases where presidents did not promote open inquiry and the pursuit of truth. At Princeton, like so many other schools, the influence of identity politics was so powerful that potential faculty hires and entire streams of inquiry were not possible, and areas of research would not be supported if they did not conform to expected progressive political norms and expectations.
Luke Grippo
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: In March, the Princeton University Board of Trustees voted to approve the University operating budget for the 2025–2026 fiscal year. For the first time in three years, the total operating budget was not shared in this announcement. Now, a letter from Provost Jennifer Rexford to the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) has revealed the total operating budget to be $3.5 billion — nearly a half billion increase from last year’s budget.
Accompanying this letter is the CPUC Report of the Priorities Committee to the President, with an introductory letter from Rexford to University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, containing a set of recommendations for budget spending. However, these numbers are still subject to change, Rexford noted in the letter.
Bill Hewitt
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: I write as a concerned alum with a long Princeton memory to openly and ardently oppose a dangerous proposal to amend the Council of the Princeton University Community Charter. University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 charged the Committee on Rights and Rules to “review the role and procedures of the Judicial Committee.” Their ensuing recommendation would strip the CPUC Judicial Committee of its jurisdiction to hear and decide initial complaints of serious University rule violations, as well as severely curtail the right of appeal of University community members at large.
Paul Mirengoff
Ringside at the Reckoning
Excerpt: This article by Stanley Kurtz describes how two giants of 20th century American conservatism -- William F. Buckley and Russell Kirk -- viewed academic freedom. The very short version is that Buckley was against it and Kirk was for it. Kirk viewed academic freedom as a vital part of our Western heritage. He saw it as an enabling condition of the quest for truth. But Kirk was not an academic freedom absolutist. Instead, says Stanley, he insisted that professors have duties along with liberties.
What would Kirk make of today's Princeton University? Princeton can't match the raw anti-Semitism so manifest at Columbia. But Princeton takes a backseat to no elite institution when it comes to promoting leftist orthodoxy and discriminating against whites and other groups disfavored by the woke.
